Bathsheba means “daughter of the oath.” Her first recorded words? “My lord, you swore by the Lord…”
Adonijah, the fourth son of King David, was given a magnificent name. It linked together two of the chief names of God—Adonai, the sovereign Master, and Jah, or Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God. He was the “very good-looking” brother of Absalom (1 Ki 1:6), and seemed to have the same self-aggrandizing spirit. Also like his brother, whose name means “the father of peace,” he was a contradiction of his own name. Instead of recognizing God’s right to rule, “Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, ‘I will be king’” (v 5). Old and tired and perhaps unaware of his son’s insurrection, “his father had not rebuked him at any time” (v 6). Gathering influential courtiers around him, “Joab the son of Zeruiah…with Abiathar the priest…they followed and helped Adonijah” (v 7). Those loyal to David were not invited to the coronation festivities at En Rogel, a spring where the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys meet just south of David’s City. But Nathan the prophet heard and quickly conferred with Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. What was at stake was not just the possibility of a drawn-out internecine conflict. Solomon was God’s prophesied choice for king. But more, coming from the erstwhile elicit relationship between David and Bathsheba, he was a living illustration of super-abounding grace. It must have been very humbling for Bathsheba to enter the royal bedroom. Lest we forget, the Spirit adds the parenthesis, “(Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was serving the king.)” (v 15). There she made her appeal, confirmed by Nathan’s testimony (vv 22-27). Thus she joins the royal chain of women in Matthew 1 who each, in the face of danger, pled the case for the triumph of God’s grace.